by Catie Murphy
And on the third hand, Megan was old enough to remember the world before the internet, and how what she’d just tried would have been absolutely impossible then anyway. “How quickly we adapt,” she told the puppies, who had eaten greedily and fallen asleep without warning. They weren’t really so much trouble, Megan thought. Mama Dog lifted one ear, then let it flop back down without further commentary, while Megan tried to remember if she’d eaten yet today. Her phone, still in her hand, binged to announce a text message from a neighbourhood friend. It said, in its entirety, hungry?
Megan laughed, texting back you must have read my mind. Starving! and twenty minutes later, an American bearing a bag of food and a tray of coffees appeared at her door. Megan stood on her toes to kiss his scruffy cheek. “You’re a man among men.”
“It’s true, I am,” he said cheerfully. About her age, bespectacled and afflicted with the notion to wear tweed, Brian Showers had been in Ireland for pushing twenty years and ran a small-press publishing house out of his spare room, because that was a thing people did. Megan was convinced that he had been invented for the purposes of making Ireland just that little bit more surreal and delightful than it could naturally lay claim to. His extravagant, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” rolled out with the soft, Transatlantic accent that called his country of origin into question.
“I will never look on food delivery with despair.” Megan took the stack of bags and coffees from him and put them on the table on her way to get a couple of plates. Brian went directly for the puppies, whose milk-sotted sleep went undisturbed even while he gave them gentle ear rubs. Mama opened one eye and moved her head just far enough to suggest he pay attention to someone who would appreciate it, and he transferred the ear scruffles to her. “I see,” said Meg. “You’re really just here to visit the dogs.”
“Fionnuala told me about them, and yes, you’ve scored a very palpable hit, but that’s why I brought lunch, to make up for the fact that I’d be neglecting conversing with you in favor of cooing over these wee darlings.”
“Mmm. I’ve been up since six and can’t remember eating, so all is forgiven.” Megan plunked down at her kitchen table and dug through the bag to find not only sandwiches but still-warm pains au chocolat, which were almost universally called chocolate croissants in Ireland. “Breakfast first,” she said to the flaky pastries, and sank her teeth into one while turning a remarkably good cup of coffee from one of the local roasters around until she could drink from the little sip hole. “I thought Two Fifty Square didn’t open until noon on weekends. Or is it noon already?” She looked for a clock and found it to be a quarter till.
“No, they open early, at nine. And even if they didn’t, neither can they resist my ineffable American charm or my sorrowful hungry gaze when I arrive early at their back door,” which, Megan knew, lay less than a dozen steps from Brian’s own front door. “Also, I told them I’d be back with all the Liz Darr gossip after they closed tonight.”
“Oh, you really are using me.” Megan caught him up on what she knew anyway and he abandoned the puppies to eat—sandwiches; he, apparently, had already had breakfast—and listen with interest. She pulled up Liz’s website to show him the second video that had been posted, and he took her phone with long fingers to hold the speaker next to his ear.
“What’s the music?”
“I think it’s ‘Molly Malone.’ It was on the last video, too, but not quite as loud. But she was talking a lot more in the other one. Simon says—” She made a face. “I don’t know how anybody could name their kid Simon, knowing they’d face a lifetime of that. Anyway, he said it was her favourite song. Her mother hates it, though. Or hates that these are posting.” Megan sighed. “She says it’s like being haunted, which I guess it is.”
“You know that traditionally, the dead only haunt the living if they need vengeance.”
Megan stared at Brian, who blinked mildly back at her. He looked ordinary enough, all high forehead and diffident smiles shining through a beard that came and went with the seasons. “You know, normal people don’t have case files on when and why ghosts haunt people.”
“Normal people don’t run small presses dedicated to the gothic and supernatural either. Ergo, I’m not normal. Did Ms. Darr leave behind reasons to haunt someone?”
“Brian, you—” Megan broke off, uncertain if what she’d been about to say was true, then charged onward anyway. “You can’t really believe she’s haunting her . . . her own blog site? Her husband? Ghosts aren’t real.”
“Aren’t they?” Pleasure, but not necessarily teasing, sparkled behind Brian’s round glasses. “I don’t know, Meg. I’ve spent a lot of time with stories of ghosts and the fantastic. Now, most of them are fiction, I grant you, but even fiction is inspired by something, isn’t it? Did Ms. Darr have a reason to haunt us?”
“Well, she may have been murdered, so I guess so, but—but you can’t be serious, Brian.” A chill, ridiculously, ran across Megan’s nape and lifted all the hair on her arms, proving that she thought the idea had some slight degree of merit, no matter how preposterous it was. “What kind of ghosts would haunt blogs anyway?”
“Twenty-first-century ghosts obviously.” Brian laughed as Megan rolled her eyes and finished, “All right, fine, there’s probably a more mundane explanation, but it can’t be coincidence that she’s playing a song about a ghost after her own death. I think probably—”
Megan’s phone rang, Fionnuala’s number coming up. Megan held up a finger, pausing Brian’s speculation. “Lemme get this.”
“Megan?” Fionn’s voice, high and thready with panic, made Megan pull the phone a few inches away from her ear. “Megan, you’ve got to get to the restaurant right away. Martin is dead.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Brian handed Megan the key to his bike lock without a word and she sped into city centre on his bike, whipping by traffic that seemed to crawl and, despite her hurry, noticing bits of architecture she never saw while on foot or driving. She needed to explore those alleys and colourful doorways, follow the plaques that told stories of Dublin’s history, now that she knew they were there—but that would wait. It took just over ten minutes to get from her flat to Molly Malone, where Megan locked up Brian’s bike and ran into the old church housing Fionnuala’s restaurant.
She stopped short just inside the door, quick breathing from her vigorous ride turning to a gasp of surprise. Gardaí swarmed the place, virulent yellow safety vests blinding under the house lights Megan had never seen fully on before. The fluorescent tones reflected painfully off the vests and washed out all the warmth and colour of the stained-glass windows. A young woman with a strong jaw and her hair in a severe twist beneath her blue cap stopped Megan at the door, her hand lifted. “I’m sorry, ma’am. You can’t come in here.”
“No, I—I mean, yes. I see that. I didn’t—” Megan took a deep breath, trying to steady both her racing heart and her thoughts. “Fionnuala Canan is a friend, and she called me a few minutes ago. May I see her?”
The cop made a dubious motion with her uplifted hand but went to check. Megan stood on the threshold, looking back and forth between the bustling, gardaí-laden restaurant and the growing crowd in Suffolk Street. Molly gazed out over the onlookers, taller than the biggest of them by a head and clearly in the way of some of the gawkers. There were a few faces Megan recognized, mostly itinerants whom she’d seen time and again on Dublin’s streets who had also been there when Liz died, but a couple of others were familiar, too—the big bodybuilder type wearing now, as he hadn’t been on Thursday, a white shirt and a thin black tie that said he probably worked at one of the other restaurants nearby, and a sharp-faced woman with frazzled hair whom Megan hadn’t exactly noticed on Thursday but knew now she’d seen then. The stroppy teen girl with the heavily made-up eyebrows and the hopeful boyfriend weren’t there, but then, Megan wouldn’t expect kids that age to roll out of bed before 2 p.m., given their druthers.
Detective Paul Bourke
came out of the restaurant, looking vaguely resigned. “You do turn up like a bad penny, don’t you, Ms. Malone?”
“I guess. Is that even a thing Irish people say? Fionn called me. What happened?”
“This Irishman says it. Martin Rafferty was found dead here at half twelve this afternoon, which I presume you know.”
“Yes, but what happened?” Megan puffed her cheeks and lifted her hands, trying to draw back her tone. “Sorry. I just—is Fionn okay? She was pretty distraught when she called and I didn’t get much out of her. I just want to know if she’s all right.”
“What is your relationship with Ms. Canan, Ms. Malone?”
“My what? We’re friends; why?” Megan frowned at Bourke’s gaze, which seemed paler, like sunlight had drawn the blue from his eyes.
“Because as far as I can ascertain, she called you before she even called the gardaí.”
“Well, you know,” Megan said under her breath, “good friends will help you move. . . .”
Bourke’s white-blond eyebrows rose, digging deep wrinkles in his forehead. “ ‘But a great friend will help you move a body’? Ms. Malone, you may want to think about who you’re speaking to.”
Megan bared her teeth in an apologetic grimace. “Yeah. Sorry. It would have made Fionn laugh.”
“Did Ms. Canan call you here to ask you to help her move a body?” A faint note of incredulity coloured Bourke’s tone, as if he couldn’t decide whether she’d made a confession or if she was just an amadán, which is Irish for “idiot” and often used as code to reference fools who—like Megan—had no Irish.
“Detective,” Megan said somewhat wearily, “if she had, she wouldn’t have called the cops right away, too, would she have? So no, I’m pretty sure she didn’t call me to move a bo . . . wait, holy cheese, does that mean Martin was murdered? I mean, you don’t try to hide bodies that didn’t meet a foul end, do you? Not that we were going to hide him, but—”
The incredulity that had touched Bourke’s tone settled very lightly on his features as Megan leaped to conclusions and tried to cover her own tracks all at once. She finally just stopped talking, then, unable to help herself, added, “I’d make a terrible criminal, wouldn’t I?”
“It may not be in your blood,” Bourke said gently, and that time Megan heard the thinnest shard of amusement in his voice. She ducked her head, looked up again with a grin, and was met by Bourke’s own brief, gobsmacking grin. It disappeared as quickly as it had come, and he said, “Martin Rafferty was murdered, yes,” in the same gentle way.
“Jesus.” Megan thought she’d expected it, but hearing an authority say the words made her sway. She put a hand against the doorframe to steady herself, and Bourke finally took a step back, freeing the doorway.
“Go ahead. Your friend is just inside the door to the right.”
“Which one?” Megan asked, high-pitched. “Fionn or Martin?”
Surprise creased Bourke’s face. “Ms. Canan. There’s no reason for you to see the body.”
“Just checking.” Megan squeezed past him and barely got inside the door before Fionn cried out and fell upon her with an embrace so tight it left Megan breathless.
“Megan, thank God it’s you! What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” Her knees collapsed and Megan, startled, caught her weight.
“I don’t know.” Megan supported Fionn—all but walked her backward—to the table she’d been at, a table blockaded by serious-faced gardaí.
Fionn had the pale skin tones of nearly every native-born Irish person up to the turn of the century, but what Megan would usually call “milky” on her was now chalky. Bruised-looking shadows stood out beneath feverishly glittering eyes, and stress gouged lines into crevasses around her mouth and nose. Megan got her into a chair and looked around, saying, “Could we get a—” before realizing she was surrounded by, and talking to, on-duty gardaí, who couldn’t be expected to run errands. “May I go into the kitchen and make her a coffee?”
The stern-faced young woman who’d stopped her at the door glanced at her compatriots, then shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“Bring me one, too,” someone else said, and the whole crew chuckled. Megan squeezed Fionn’s hands, said, “Don’t go anywhere,” as if she would, and went into the kitchen.
There was a pot—nearly a vat—of coffee already brewed, which Megan had thought there might be if Fionn had gotten as far as the kitchen before finding Martin’s body. Making the coffee was always her first task. The fact that Megan had been allowed in the kitchen indicated his body wasn’t found there.
Megan went back out to the bar, got a bottle of Jameson’s finest, and returned to make Fionn a stiff Irish coffee and to pour cups without the added whiskey, cream, and sugar, for the gardaí. She boiled a kettle while she was at it, putting together a big pot of tea, and brought a tray balanced with everything, from teacups to a carafe of coffee and cream, out to the table, where the guards visibly thawed at her efforts.
Fionn looked askance at the pile of teacups, and Megan, not so quietly she couldn’t be heard by the gardaí, said, “Nobody wants to deal with tragedy first thing on a Sunday morning. Tea isn’t going to solve anything, but it soothes the soul.”
Water filled Fionnuala’s eyes, but she nodded and wrapped her hands around the tall coffee mug Meg had made for her, bending her head over it as the police, relaxed a little bit now, poured tea and began murmuring amongst themselves instead of standing in stony silence. Megan waited until Fionn had taken the first sip of the whiskey-doctored coffee and a flush of colour come into her cheeks as her eyes widened. “This is brilliant. You used the good stuff.”
“I did, but I make a mean Irish coffee even with cheap whiskey. Drink up.” Megan didn’t expect Fionn to actually chug the thing, and she didn’t, but after a few more sips and a bit more colour in her face, Megan took a deep breath and asked the pressing question. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” The roughness in Fionn’s voice came from more than the whiskey. “I came in around eleven, and . . . I wanted to make the place feel welcome again, like. The past few days, it’s been as if my own restaurant was a stranger to me, if that makes any sense.” She darted a look at Megan, clearly expecting it wouldn’t make sense, but Megan nodded, and Fionn went on. “So I got coffee on and tidied up the kitchen—scrubbed down where the puppies were born—how are they?”
“Getting bigger, but not opening their eyes yet.”
Fionnuala smiled weakly, took a fortifying sip of the coffee—larger than before—then focused her gaze on it as she spoke. “I got the kitchen sorted and thought I’d do a walk-through. That’s when I found him, in the back. He was . . .” She stood suddenly, striding into the kitchen. Her feet, bizarrely, were bare, which had to be a health and safety violation, not that Megan thought she should bring that up just then.
Fionn returned a few seconds later with the whiskey bottle Megan had liberated from the bar. She poured a no-nonsense measure into her mug, added more sugar, and drained the lot in a few hard gulps. Only then could she say, “They’d cut his throat. I’d never seen the like. Blood was . . .” She gestured with the coffee cup, suggesting splatters everywhere, and turned a grim gaze into the emptiness of the mug. Megan took it and mixed up another Irish coffee, this one much lighter on the booze. Fionn made a face but didn’t add any more whiskey. “I called you and then I called himself.”
Himself, more formally known as Detective Bourke, approached as Fionnuala finished the tale. The sharp-jawed garda woman, whose jaw had unclenched a bit with the application of tea, gave him a nod so subtle, Megan imagined she hadn’t been supposed to see it. Bourke looked satisfied, not surprised, and made a questioning motion toward the tea. Fionn said, “Go ahead” and he poured himself a cup, which he drank straight, no milk or sugar.
“Why did you call Ms. Malone first, Ms. Canan?”
“For God’s sake, sit down,” Fionn snapped. “I can’t talk to you lording it over me like that, I’ll get a cric
k in my neck.” She didn’t talk either, until Bourke, his expression neutral, as if he was snarled at by civilians every day—and maybe he was, Megan thought—sat across from her and put his hot tea on the table in front of him. “Megan’s been rescuing me sorry arse for the past two days.” She paused, staring past Bourke’s shoulder, and Megan could all but see her trying to count the days.
“One and a long half,” Bourke agreed. “Since Thursday night.”
“Day and a half, then. She kept on top of finding out whether it’d been food poisoning that killed Elizabeth Darr and she took the puppies even though it meant trouble of her own—”
“Puppies?” Bourke’s voice flickered upward in surprise.
“A pregnant dog broke into the kitchen Thursday during all the chaos and had puppies under the counter,” Megan volunteered. “I took them home.”
An abbreviated sound, like the start of a swallowed laugh, escaped the back of Paul Bourke’s throat. “It’s been a mad few days, hasn’t it?”
“I thought it’d help to have her here, being American about it all.” Fionn splayed a frustrated hand as both Bourke and Megan’s eyebrows rose. “You know, level-headed in an emergency, all cool and collected like John Wayne.”
Megan couldn’t help glancing at all five foot three of herself, more than a foot shorter than John Wayne had been, and looked up with a smile.
“A wee John Wayne,” Fionn conceded. “With better hair.”
“Well, that part’s not hard. Is Fionn a suspect, Detective?”
Fionn flinched and went still at the question, like she’d been afraid to ask. Bourke shook his head almost imperceptibly, though he said, “No one can be ruled out just now. Can you prove your whereabouts this morning between six and nine, Ms. Canan?”
“I wasn’t at Mass for all the world to see, if that’s what you’re asking! I was at home, sleeping,” she added less defensively. “With my partner, who got up a couple times to use the loo, so he can say whether I was there or not, when he was awake to see it.”